The Spirit of Democracy

• In Event: Democratic Boundaries

Abstract

People commonly refer to the “spirit” of something, whether it be an occasion, an event, an action, a political movement, or an age. Archibald Willard’s “The Spirit of ’76” means to salute and transmit the spirit of the American Revolution. The world’s many civilizations are constructed “by the blood of the spirit, by suffering and courage,” according to Albert Camus (Resistance, Rebellion, and Death, p. 58). But what is spirit, in its political manifestations? There are forms of spirit that are normatively desirable and which fit well with central liberal-democratic commitments. They include what Thomas Scanlon calls a “spirit of tolerance” (Difficulty of Tolerance, p. 198), and what John Rawls refers to as the “spirit of compromise”—one of the main cooperative virtues of political life (Political Liberalism, p. 163). These are salutary for citizenship and potentially reparative for beleaguered political institutions. But spirit also has darker manifestations. It can motivate treacherous political goals and ugly forms of nationalism. Political spirit can induce people to sacrifice themselves and others for hateful political orders. The negative potential of spirit in politics, in the current global political climate, makes the need for greater understanding even more urgent.

Author

• Lucas Swaine, Dartmouth College